We'll admit it: After describing him as a scourge of the class action plaintiffs bar, a class action gadfly, a crusader, and a serial settlement objector, we're running out of nifty shorthands for Theodore Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness. Let's just say he gets really fired up by class action settlements he thinks are unfair. And he's got a knack for blowing them apart in the courts.

Frank's latest victory came Thursday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a securities class action stemming from the 1998 merger between BankAmerica and NationsBank that created Bank of America Corporation. Taking aim at one of Frank's favorite targets—cy pres awards—the court overturned a decision to hand over leftover settlement funds from the case to a Missouri legal nonprofit, rather than distributing the money to investors or to a group concerned with shareholder issues.

The underlying litigation, brought by shareholders of both pre-merger banks, settled more than a decade ago for $490 million. Frank's client, NationsBank class representative David Oetting, had challenged the district court's decision years later to award $2.5 million in “surplus” settlement funds to Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, a well-respected legal charity in the state.